February resolution update

Two months into the year and things are definitely going better in regards to my new year’s resolutions. In this post I’ll point out the highlights from the month of February.

So in my last post I put a lot of emphasis on the fact that we started p90x in February. Well so far things have gone really well with it! I’ve lost 15lbs in less than 30 days! I think the biggest culprit for the weight loss is the very strict diet. I had little idea how many carbs I was eating prior to starting p90x. Needless to say, my diet changed pretty drastically. The workouts are intense too, though I do enjoy most of them. My favorite so far is Kenpo. I’m interested to see just how much weight I will have lost by the end of the program. Surely I won’t get all the way to 190, but you never know (currently 214). I think the 200 to 205 range is a pretty achievable goal, but we’ll see.

I’ve also been reading through Code Complete and making pretty good progress on it. It’s a much longer book than many that I’ve read in the past, but the material is very thorough and practical. The book that I have on deck is Design Patterns by the Gang of Four. I’ve heard many good things about this one, so I’m really excited about starting it.

I’ve had a few different ideas for web apps that I’d like to develop, but haven’t made a ton of progress on any of them yet. There is a small one that I’m trying to put together for the Oscar’s this coming weekend, but I don’t know that I’ll have enough time to get it done.

Regarding my “learn PowerShell” goal, I’ve found a very good resource at powershell.com. There is an e-book that I’ve found quite helpful. I’ve only gone through the first couple of chapters, but it seems like a great introduction to PowerShell. Also, I found it kind of funny that one of my favorite podcasts, “Deep-fried Bytes”, did an episode called “Using PowerShell to be more Effective”. That’s right up my alley.

The one thing that I’d really planned on starting in February that didn’t happen was to start doing things early in the morning. We started out doing p90x in the mornings, but due to differences in our schedules we decided it was smarter to do it at night. As a result I have gone back into my habit of waking up just in time to get ready for work. Here’s to changing that in March!

All in all I’d consider February a pretty successful month. I’m very excited to be down 15lbs already and I feel like I’m making good progress in other aspects of my resolutions. Just need to keep up the fire and keep knocking stuff out. It’s a long year, so there’s plenty of time still to accomplish everything I wanted and then some!